A Load of Bright is hosting the latest installment of the Carnival of the Godless, and Tobe38 has made my takedown of John Terry the headliner, calling it an “absolute tour de force.” I blush humbly. Many thanks to Tobe, and for the rest of you, getcher asses over there for some great godless reading. I’ll be busy much of today doing same.

Welcome to The Atheist Experience, and the 66th Carnival of the Godless. We are proud to be hosting this installment, which I confess I wish had an extra digit in its issue number.

If you’ve never read our blog before, or seen the Atheist Experience TV show, or listened to the Non-Prophets podcast, or read the Iron Chariots wiki, I think your visit here will add quite a lot to your online atheism activities. I hope that you will excuse the liberal dose of self-pimpage, but below is a quick “best-of” compendium of AE blog entries from the last few months, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading and will perhaps persuade you to bookmark us. As one person of discriminating taste to another, I’m sure you will!

First, you can read all my coverage of this year’s The Amaz!ng Meeting 5, hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundation in Las Vegas back in January, by clicking here.

You can also watch several video files of Atheist Experience TV episodes by choosing this tag.

Pat Robertson predicted the US would fall victim to a nuclear — or is that “nucular”? &#151 terrorist strike this year, and I had, shall we say, a little fun with it. Previously appeared in COTG #57.

TV show host Matt Dillahunty has a word or two in response to the hysterical overreaction by some Christian groups upon the discovery of — gasp! — an actual real-live atheist holding public office! Clearly the fall of the republic is at hand, and the barbarians are at the gates!

In our most linked-to and highly-trafficked post (over 1000 hits from Pharyngula alone), we present a series of YouTube clips revealing Kent Hovind’s phone calls from jail. They display the infamous YEC’s delusions and disconnection from reality to a truly sad degree. A number of comments have also been left by Hovind defenders, some earnest, some sad, most just as deluded as Hovind’s own ravings. As PZ Myers described them, these tapes are a real window into fundamentalist creationist pathology.

I walk all over a popular Christian retort, that there are no such things as atheists, or that atheism presupposes theism, here. Ray Comfort likes to use this one a lot. It’s as dumb as most of what usually comes out of his mouth.

Now onto this edition’s submissions. Thanks to all the fine godless bloggers who’ve participated. And yes, I actually read all of these before adding them to the list below, because, hey, blog carnivals are all about reading great stuff! Please note these are in no particular order. Just peruse at will. There’s a load of stuff here to choose from, and it’s full of awesome!

In this hilarious post, “The Continuing Saga of the Bible Faith Handkerchief,” Akusai takes you on a guided tour of a preposterous, money-grubbing Christian pamphlet called “The Seed Principle,” which is so laughably egregious it could only be viewed positively by someone who aggressively refuses to think in any way, shape or form. Posted at Action Skeptics. Akusai was one of the readers here who participated in the now-legendary comment threads in which we had to deal with a fundamentalist troll suffering from some pretty profound personality disorders. His whole blog is really good, particularly this post about his efforts to hold off a planned visit to his hometown by crazed hatemonger Fred Phelps.

In rebuttal to religionists who claim only their fantasies can lend a person a sense of wonder and awe about life, the universe, and everything, Greta Christina presents “Dancing Molecules: An Atheist Moment of Transcendence” posted at Greta Christina’s Blog. Greta finds much that is awe-inspiring in the fact “that out of atoms and molecules, here we were managing to create the experience of joy.”

John mocks the dogmatic predispositions of Christian apologist Alvin Plantinga in “Plantinga and the Xtians” posted at hell’s handmaiden, and wonders how foolish actual scientists would be if they adopted Plantinga’s methods of arguing.

The Atheist Jew has some witty things to say about a woman who didn’t like something she read on a coffee cup in “Starbucks, Believers Don’t Like It When You Provoke Thought” posted at THE ATHEIST JEW. However, of equal interest is a pompous and completely off-topic screed in the comments by some believer named Raymond, who hasn’t, so far, had the stones to stick around and respond to other commenters’ rebuttals of his tautological nonsense.

alun presents Religious Virulence posted at Clioaudio, saying, “One feature of the religion as virus idea is that, if its vertically transmitted, it would be expected to evolve to become more benign. Recent research suggests that viral fitness is not related to virulence.”

Prup (aka Jim Benton) offers a compelling series of posts from over at Debunking Christianity. In a personal email to me, Jim says, “…it’s an honor for a 60-yr old autodidact to have been invited to join the crew there. I just wanted to say that these are the opening of what will be a five-part series on ethics. (Part I and Part II A are up and being submitted, but I hope to have Part II B up before next Sunday, so if you mention it as well — assuming you choose to include them at all — I’d appreciate it.) And if you mention that almost any post on DC is worth noting, and especially the comments sections, which have become serious dialogues, not just collections of one-paragraph comments, I’d also appreciate that. I don’t know if John [Loftus] is submitting his pieces on slavery, but they deserve honorable mention.” So, dig in!

Here’s another local boy I’m happy to promote! Austin Atheist cautions believers — particularly those dazzling clods Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort — “How Not To Persuade An Atheist #1: Bypassing the Intellect,” posted at ΛUSTIN ΛTHEIST ΛNØNYMØUS. He tells us, “This is the first of a series of post I hope will continue well into the future. I may have one or two more by the time the next COTG rolls around. So, I might submit more than one. I’ll leave it to you to post them all or only the first. See you there!” This is a very funny and entertaining post!

Richard discusses “The Problem of Unfreedom” at Philosophy, et cetera. As he describes it, it’s “a new twist on the old ‘Problem of Evil’ argument against God’s existence: Argues that cognitive deficiencies impede our free will in a way that’s inconsistent with the existence of a perfect being.” While I think Richard’s critique of free will is imperfect, it provides a good springboard for discussion, and there are some worthwhile replies in his comments thread.

CapeTownDissentator is, like all sensible people, bemused and embarrassed that after 150 years, Americans still question a scientific principle as fundamental as biological evolution, and that we can get three presidential wannabees admitting outright to not believing in it on television, in “No More Monkey Business” posted at The Dissentators.

And that’s a wrap for this edition! Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of the Godless, which will be hosted on May 27 by Letters from a Broad, using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found at the blog carnival index page. Thanks again to all the participants this time, and we’ll see you readers back here again very soon.